Abby gets me to participate in this Year in Review Meme with this post:

I went in search of a Year in Review Meme, and one seemed kind of neat. It suggests taking your first post from each month of the year, then taking the last section of it and posting it all in a single list. So that’s what I’m doing. Right… NOW!

As I'm going through my posts from the past year, only looking at the first post from each month, where I actually wrote something, I'm finding alot of interesting things:

1. Reality TV puts real people in artificial situations. It's time for a show featuring real people in real situations.

Kayak is a search engine for travel that Gary Price turned me onto that has literally saved me probably thousands of $$$ and is so far superior to Expedia / Yahoo Travel / Travelocity that its astonishing. I really hope that this company makes it.

This is not an exclusive list, but one that contains some of the major areas that I plan on working on in 2006.

1. Direct Shipment of Wine to MassachusettsThankfully Governor Romney defeated the restrictive bill that was sent to him at the end of the year. Hopefully a better version will come out in the new year. I'll continue to contact my legislators and express my views, even though some of them don't want to hear from me. [ Free the Grapes ]

2. No Parking on Storrow DriveEvery summer, a few hundred cars are allowed to park along Storrow Drive during outdoor events. This disrupts thousands of people trying to get through the city. It is insane! It must stop! I will not rest until parking on Storrow Drive is stopped.

3. Change for ChangeOur coinage is stupid. There are no numerals on there. Take a look at the Euro for a good example of how coinage should be designed. I will not rest until US Currency gets numbers on it. 5/10/25/50 Yay! [ Change for Change ]

4. RocketboomI produced a number of field reports for Rocketboom from Boston this year and plan do produce a lot more. I'm looking for interesting and quirky technology stories.

5. Node 101 and Citizen MediaI'm going to set up a local citizens media gathering place in Jamaica Plain at Sweet Finnish. It'll be a place for people to learn about videoblogging and citizen media. People will be taken through the continuum: watch, learn, create, and teach. Watch for more details after the first of the year. [ Node101, Center for Citizen Media, Pulse Point ]

6. Bank of AmericaEver since bank of America swallowed Fleet Bank, service has declined. In contrast to Bank of America's TV commercials stating that their goal is to make ATM transactions faster, ATM transaction now take a lot longer. Fleet bank used to have a Fleet Cash option to deduct a previously saved amount from your account by entering your PIN and then pressing Fleet Cash. Now you have to enter your PIN and press a whole bunch of menu items and buttons to get cash out of the ATM. It's not faster, it's slower. Also, you can't get stamps anymore. I've contacted them in many different ways and will not rest until they fix this.

7. Videoblogging EducationI will continue to teach videoblogging at CCTV in Cambridge and work with Ravi Jain to enhance the class with the goal of taking it on the road.

8. I Subscribe To People Video NetworkThe big idea here is to create a network of shows that are an alternative to big media. I'll be working with local comedians, musicians, writers and creative people to develop a regular schedule of shows. Contact me if you are interested.[ I Subscribe To People ]

9. Behind the scenes reportingI really enjoyed some of the behind the scenes video projects that I worked on last year including the video reports that I did for evolvetv.tv [ 1, 2 ] I'm looking to do more of the same in 2006.

10. PhotographyAlthough I'm focused on video, I plan to spend more time learning how to use the advanced features of my digital camera. Back in the old days all you had to know was speed and aperture. [ flickr ]

"vlogtechweb(Video bLOG) A Weblog (blog) that provides a video journal on a subject rather than text entries. A link to a video on a regular text blog is not a vlog. Vlogs are short video entries that take the place of text and are typically listed in chronological order like a text blog. Also called a "vog" or "vog blog." ""

It's wrong.

WHERE THIS DEFINITION IS WRONGvlogtechweb(Video bLOG) A Weblog (blog) that provides a video journal on a subject rather than text entries. WRONG

"LibriVox volunteers record chapters of books in the public domain, and then we release the audio files back onto the net (podcast and catalog). Our objective is to make all books in the public domain available, for free, in audio format on the internet."

"Think popping extra pain pills can't hurt? Think again: Accidental poisonings from the nation's most popular pain reliever seem to be rising, making acetaminophen the leading cause of acute liver failure."

"Video comes to blogs to begat vlogs. For anybody who's getting tired of reading all those wordy blogs (short for Weblogs) posted on the Internet on every conceivable niche topic, video comes to the rescue. If a picture is worth a thousand words, video might be worth even more. Now anyone can subscribe to vlogs and have the latest installments automatically delivered to the computer desktop (and transferred to a portable player, such as the video iPod)."

"In the real world - and the United States exists in the real world, despite a national weakness for wishful thinking - failure has consequences. The prospects for American success in Iraq, which do not look promising, are the consequence of a cascading series of previous, all-too-familiar failures - the failure to heed intelligence warnings before 9/11, the failure to press the hunt for Osama bin Laden until he was caught, the failure to think twice before invading Iraq, the failure to send enough troops to establish security once the Iraqi Army quit fighting, the failure to recognize the growing insurgency until it was too big to crush, the failure to begin building an Iraqi Army and police services in a timely manner, the failure to foresee that a war in Iraq would draw jihadists from every corner of the Islamic world. . . ."

Jeans- Nautica YKK makes a horrible zipper. It was ok until I got my new Nautica jeans and discovered how a zipper with more area to hold on to made a huge difference. Think about it. You wouldn't know you hated your zipper, if all you knew up until this point was a crappy little zipper.

"Another important milestone for online video will be reached in 2006 when Comcast begins offering 10 megabyte download and 1 megabyte upload speeds for their standard broadband package. At 10 megs down, home viewing of video streams will be smooth and high quality, and this will further drive the convergence of television and the web. It will also make start-up efforts by vloggers more doable, because it won't take as long to upload their products at 1 meg. Symmetrical broadband, where upload and download speeds are equal (and robust) is a sticky business issue that is unlikely to be resolved for some time, but there will be increasing pressure from consumers to move in that direction."

Post - By posting your video to a blog, others will be able to link to it. Each blog entry has a permanent link. Each post also allows comments, so discussions can take place about what you have posted.- See this post's comments. Add yours.

Stories - Everyone has a story to tell. Up till now, they've been stored in shoeboxes. With videobloging these stories can have an audience. - See MeFeedia.

Internet - These stories can now be viewed by a worldwide audience. - See VlogMap.

"“We crossed the lines because we believe it is more important to humanize a conflict than it is to trade in rhetorical truths, or to reinforce easy notions of enemy and friend, which are mere propaganda.”"

Wednesday, December 21, 2005

"President Bush presents a clear and present danger to the rule of law. He cannot be trusted to conduct the war against global terrorism with a decent respect for civil liberties and checks against executive abuses. Congress should swiftly enact a code that would require Mr. Bush to obtain legislative consent for every counterterrorism measure that would materially impair individual freedoms. "

"What is an AntiPhoto? An AntiPhoto is more than a photo, is a masterpiece." The photo selections should be made by instinct. most of the times you don't need a reason to love something or someone, there are lots of things impossible to explain. this group meant to be more about feelings than techincal paranoias

Shouldn't flickr disable the blog this menu option if the photos are copyrighted?

"Create a more compelling user experience by adding Reuters video to your site. Our news video player has up to 20 of the latest breaking stories from around the world - updated throughout the day so the content is always fresh. The player is Windows and Macintosh compatible and takes just a few minutes to integrate into your site. Visitors can watch full news stories right in the context of your page; there are no pop-ups or software installs. Player features include fast forward, previous video, next video, play all and volume control with mute capability. During this pilot period, our player is free of charge to any site and may contain advertising."

This is a really great example of how you can use the Brighcove player to distribute your content through an affiliate network.

At the Online News Association, the editor of a newspaper’s online site stood up and said passionately, almost tearfully, that she was tired of hearing others refer to themselves as “citizen journalists.” She declared, “I am a citizen, too.” I’ve heard that a few times and I have two replies: First, if you want the citizens to see you as citizens, then you need to be willing to see the citizens as journalists. Second, I ask: What does it mean to be a citizen? What is your role as a neighbor? What are your responsibilities as a member of the community?

The old rule, which I didn’t necessarily buy but just assumed was right, was that journalists should not get involved in their stories. Yet today, that sounds more like the prime directive for crew members of the Starship Enterprise than the ethic of journalists who are supposed to serve their communities. And it sounds like one more way that journalism has tried to separate itself from the public it serves and to set journalists apart from their neighbors.

"Starting in 2006, I'll be putting together a nonprofit Center for Citizen Media. The goals are to study, encourage and help enable the emergent grassroots media sphere, with a major focus on citizen journalism.

I'm thrilled and honored that the center will be affiliated with two superb universities in a bi-coastal partnership.

* Here on the Pacific Rim, where I live, the center will collaborate with the University of California, Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism. As an I.F. Stone Teaching Fellow, I'll do a class next fall, and my principal physical office will be at Berkeley as well.

* Our Atlantic-facing partner is the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University Law School, where I'll be a Research Fellow. I'll visit there regularly -- at least once a month -- to work with other fellows, faculty and students."

Loudblog is a sleek and easy-to-use Content Management System (CMS) for publishing media content on the web. It automatically generates a skinnable website and an RSS-Feed for Podcasting. Just upload your audio/video files, add some notes and links, and you’re done!

FireAnt does play SWF files. But Flash video is not a SWF. It is an FLV loaded into a SWF.. often loaded externally via relative link within the Flash file. This type of scenario often breaks syndication because it cannot be viewed offline or from a local hard drive. Syndicating the raw FLV file is preferrable as it doesn't require any dependencies on networked resources, but it is a little more difficult to play as FLV doesn't play natively within Flash player -- it must be loaded inside a SWF controller.

"The president was so desperate to kill The New York Times’ eavesdropping story, he summoned the paper’s editor and publisher to the Oval Office. But it wasn’t just out of concern about national security."

Next week, Americans will gather to celebrate Christmas and Hanukkah. Many families will be praying for loved ones spending this season far from home -- in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other dangerous places. Our nation joins in those prayers. We pray for the safety and strength of our troops. We trust, with them, in a love that conquers all fear, in a light that reaches the darkest corners of the Earth. And we remember the words of the Christmas carol, written during the Civil War: "God is not dead, nor [does] He sleep; the Wrong shall fail, the Right prevail, with peace on Earth, goodwill to men."

"We are teaching the world the great truth that Govts. do better without Kings & Nobles than with them. The merit will be doubled by the other lesson that Religion flourishes in greater purity, without than with the aid of Govt"

The Carol and Steve Show is a charming episodic chronicle of his quotidian adventures with his wife — biking around Nantucket, vacationing in California wine country, eating Thanksgiving leftovers — complete with Seinfeld-esque theme music.

"Vlognik: So these characters are not you then? This is not autobiography?

Cordova: Nope.

jadelr: No.

Cordova: It draws from real situations, as does most fiction, but NO thank god they are not us, we're not that interesting or amusing really... or disturbing.

As for our characters: Normal people censor thoughts, act in a more socially acceptable manner. Our characters act out the random thoughts many of us have, but know not to act upon (most of the time). That's what makes it amusing (we hope) and something to which we can all relate (we hope)... at least that's the idea."

"Podcast Maker is a tool for Mac OS X that makes podcasting simple. Novices can become podcasters and professionals can podcast without having to do XML situps. Create enhanced podcasts with your images and links to take your podcast to the next level."

Friday, December 16, 2005

MASSACHUSETTS: GOVERNOR VETOES ANTI-SHIPPING BILLAs previously reported, Governor Mitt Romney sent a letter on November 21 to state legislatures vetoing House Bill No. 4498, commenting on the bill's "anti-consumer effect, as well as its dubious constitutionality." The House and Senate could override the Governor's veto once it returns for a special session, which could be called later in December, or could roll over into the regular session in January.

Among other provisions, the bill prohibits out-of-state wineries from shipping directly to MA consumers if they have been represented by a MA wholesaler within the last six months or if they produce more than 30,000 gallons of wine a year. (Romney's letter said that, according to the MA Department of Agricultural Resources, all MA wineries fall under the 30,000 gallon threshold.)

Whatever the outcome of yesterday's elections, Iraqis and the chances for democracy and peace are the big winners. For the third time in a year, facing the prospect of death, Iraqis turned out to vote in far higher proportions than we Americans do. Some might even say that Iraq, like most societies still in the process of cleansing the bloodstains of tyranny, savors the promise of freedom and democracy far more than we do.

"XWhaves is a new component of the Woods Hole Film Festival that offers filmmakers an opportunity to reflect on the impact of new technological developments on the shape and nature of filmmaking. Join members of the new media revolution in an active, open discussion of citizen journalism, personal media, video blogging and the convergence of digital storytelling methods with a new era of novel, inexpensive worldwide distribution and other aspects of the ever-changing landscape of how content gets delivered."

"On another vlog, stevegarfield.blogs.com/videoblog/, Steve Garfield screens daily life in his Boston home. He calls it "The Carol and Steve Show," where viewers can watch Mr. Garfield and his wife, Carol, opening Hanukkah gifts or delighting in their leftover Thanksgiving sweet-potato soufflé. The show is in its 51st episode.

For Mr. Garfield, vlogging is an easy outlet for his creative side. It's unlikely a major network would pick up 'The Carol and Steve Show," but the Internet allows him to broadcast his show as much as he wants along with other videos that teach would-be vloggers basic video techniques, as well a show he narrates called "Vlog Soup" pointing out his top picks among new vlogs.

"It's part of the democratization of media," says Mr. Garfield. "It gives people the tools to express themselves and be creative in all different ways."

Mr. Garfield, who in the past produced public-access shows, is making a career, of sorts, out of vlogging, serving as a correspondent for a popular blog (rocketboom.com/vlog) that includes homemade news reports, and he is paid to create vlogs for others.

One of Mr. Garfield's clients is Boston City Councilor John Tobin, whose vlog, votejohntobin.com/blog/Videos, gives regular updates on issues for his constituents. Leading up to the November election Mr. Tobin updated the vlog every day.

Viewers could tune in and watch him point out potholes in neighborhood roadways and show busy intersections where he wanted to install speed bumps. On Election Day, he received 706 hits on his site, nearly double the amount of hits for his vlog in November of the prior year."

Subscribe

Ad

Pages

About Me

Steve is a Social Media Traveler. Companies, brands, and destinations send my wife and I on trips in hopes that we will publicly share our experiences via social media. Examples include opening festivities for the Hermitage Club and traveling with GMC to the Super Bowl. (Go Pats!) We are available for more branded experience trips.